The San Francisco Giants, thanks largely to a balky knee that has absolutely nothing to do with steroids, are 14 games under .500, 11 games behind the first-place San Diego Padres and appear stuck in a rather large ditch with poor plumbing and a strange puddle of something green. But a new theory explaining the Giants' early futility has arisen, and it has nothing to do with dudes with enormous heads and mistress issues. It's all due to ... Father Guido Sarducci.

According to the San Jose Mercury-News, the aging "Saturday Night Live" writer — also known, in a "just hoping to become an extra on 'CSI'" type of way, as Don Novello — has put a curse on the Giants. He is furious — well, as furious as Father Guido Sarducci can get — that the Giants have fired his "baseball-fetching Portugese water dogs." They used to go get Barry Bonds home run balls from the bay, but since there is no Barry Bonds, there are no baseball-fetching Portugese water dogs. Sarducci says the hex will not be lifted until the dogs are returned. He then went back to more voice work on Atlantis: Milo's Return.